


moi je t'offrirai des perles de pluie

by doubtthestars



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Afghanistan, Army AU, Footy Ficathon, Gen, M/M, french-us relations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-06
Updated: 2015-02-06
Packaged: 2018-03-10 20:31:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3302501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doubtthestars/pseuds/doubtthestars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>War stinks, just like bodies in heat, all packed tight and begging for some rain from God to shower them. God does not come. God does not want them marching the desert for forty days and forty nights and rinse and repeat.</p>
<p>Olivier is sick of war, is sick of the heat and the shit for brains who sent him here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	moi je t'offrirai des perles de pluie

**Author's Note:**

> title comes from Ne Me Quitte Pas by Jacques Brel.
> 
> 'I'll give you pearls of rain,  
> from lands where it never rains'

War is shit.

There are documentaries and memoirs and movies all saying it but no one believes it should be stopped.

They just keep declaring this and that and nuclear weapons are a big enough hand in your pocket to show you are not playing at pretend. There is no poker face that wins the pot because everyone has guns pointed at one another. It is the first to start sweating in their seat that loses.

War is just those people crying wolf when they see someone pull a trigger. They are not pulling a trigger at all, but reaching into their pocket for a handkerchief to mop up the sweat.

War stinks, just like bodies in heat, all packed tight and begging for some rain from God to shower them. God does not come. God does not want them marching the desert for forty days and forty nights and rinse and repeat.

Olivier is sick of war, is sick of the heat and the shit for brains who sent him here to help the United States on their mission to save another country from themselves or wipe it out by teaching it how to breathe when it is choked by the hand that feeds. He has been here for far too long to remember what the date it is when he meets Debuchy but he thinks they might've gotten mail, so it had to be a Wednesday.

Mathieu is an eager, green Air Forceman. He was based in Kandahar and he is from Northern France. Olivier is from Chambery and is stuck in Nijrab. They are worlds apart and Olivier isn't sure why he takes him under his wing.

"You're younger than me?" Mathieu is incredulous like the world had turned upside down and gravity wasn't working. He cannot fathom Oli being his junior. It is as if the very universe has made a cosmic error in their births, because he cannot believe it. It is absolutely ludicrous. He almost asks to see his proof.

"By months yes, does it matter? You act as if it is significant." Olivier's voice is flat as he turns to his side on the cot, trying to find an inch of comfortable so he can get to sleep and stop Mathieu from asking any more questions.

It had become a habit to fill the silence for the older boy. Olivier thought he might be used to sleeping with the television screen on or live in a busy house or a busy neighborhood that he needed a stream of chatter to sleep. He hadn't asked and it had never come up with the information Debuch voluntarily shared.

"How do you celebrate back home?" Olivier turns over again and moves his pillow to practically suffocate himself.

"I don't," comes muffled out from the side of the pillow. It is the end of the conversation. Mathieu is at a loss.

* * *

 

Debuch is a mechanic with hands that look soft and Olivier knows he is not made for war. There is no war. This is just a farce of a takeover, a scare-tactic but there is a body count, even on their side. A scared cat will attack even if you attempt to give it a home. They are working with the Afghan Army. They go out and patrol and burn fields in the name of time and liberty.

The smoke that rises is different from the smoke of cigarettes. It is yellower and thicker. The desert takes it back into her arms and she seems brighter, high on the fumes of opium. Olivier's fingers itch, the yellow ring of skin faded because Mathieu didn't like it when he filled their tent with smoke. He had to cut back anyway. It was going to kill him one day.

Mathieu has always had a vivid imagination. He goes around the district and tries to smile because his mother had always taught him to be polite in a stranger's home. He does not think of the children keeping their distance, watching him with old-soul eyes, lumbering around in his heavy uniform and helmet and the country's name painted on him like a target.

He has nightmares and wakes up before he has to pull the trigger and laughs because Oli is breathing slowly beside him, practically in arm's reach. He laughs because he doesn't want to cry. Mathieu knows Olivier would take his gun and pull the trigger himself and he wonders what that means.

"I'm not gonna _convert_ for you, Debuchy." There is silence and Jacques understands no one finds it funny. Mathieu looks pale and scared with his fists against his sides before retreating with his back stiff.

Olivier is bristling, his strides precise just like he's been taught, but there is nothing that can be done about the anger in his face and Debuch being ridiculed by Jacques. He takes a long route to the edge of civilization and spits.

Nijrab is contained in valleys which he can see in the distance. He wonders if the sand will ever recover from the blood spilled. He wonders if there is something like a glass sculpture growing in his lungs. Sand melted from his veins and his fucking ridiculous crush. Olivier feels like there is a madness inside him that won't let go until he has offered a sacrifice and he doesn't want it to be Mathieu.

He can't let it be Mathieu.

* * *

 

There is ambush. He is not there but Mathieu is and a boy, no a teenager warns him away.

"Taliban." Olivier curses because this is what they were sent to do. This is why they had guns on patrol and yet it hadn't worked. The calm of the storm had ended and Olivier is scared for the first time in his life since he was a little boy with his mother's hand holding tight, tell him it would be alright, smiling a sad smile.

It is on the supplies road and he can't breathe right, something rattling in his chest every moment Mathieu is not in front of him. His CO is preparing to send them for support to the bottom of the pass and he stands at attention, his eyes darting around to all of the soldiers he has seen for the past age and knows there is a possibility they will all not come back. There is a possibility _he_ will not come back.

Olivier has been prepared for that eventuality since he was born.

It is Mathieu he is worried about living and dying and everything in between. If he, he doesn't finish the thought. They drive east towards the sun.

Mathieu is lying on the ground, tending to the wounded as best he can. The interpreter beside him is shivering with bloodloss and Mathieu himself has been shot in the leg.

He counts at least three snipers on higher ground and around fifty guerilla men. They were ill-equipped and unprepared and he does not want to die in this country. He does not want to be a another body sent home with honors instead of breath.

His hands tremble as he pressed down on Marcel's wound and wrapped it with a rag they had probably scavenged from someone's kit. He does not look at the bodies.

He is sweating through his BDUs and he realizes dumbly that he is probably dying. Mathieu rubs a hand on his face, pretending his tears are sweat and when he hears artillery fire, he ducks instinctively. A bullet whizzes by his ear and he throws himself back to the shelter of the wreckage. He must be in someone's line of fire.

Olivier is in front of him like a mirage and Mathieu shouts a warning, tries to get up on his useless leg but it is too late.

Olivier gets shot.

* * *

 

Mathieu gets a letter and a care package from some religious organization. He leaves the package on his cot to open the letter with the familiar handwriting.

Olivier tells him about the children in town that had adopted him and wheeled him around to the candy store so he would buy them chocolates. He tells him he misses him and the therapy is going well and he should regain movement by the time Mathieu comes back to France. He reads between the lines and understands this is how Olivier had decided to show his love. 

He has sent letters for every week he had been gone.

He still has two years to wait but he had been transferred to a hangar, keeping up maintenance on the planes. His leg doesn't ache and he knows he was lucky. They were lucky that the convoy of the Afghan Army had come and gotten them to medics. Olivier had been honorably discharged from duty to go back home but Mathieu had stayed.

"Giroud?" Mathieu calls to him and Olivier starts, not sure why Debuch using his last name is significant now. It is the way he says it, he decides. When they are around the others, it is the common bark or casual mention but it sounded strange coming from Mathieu, foreign to his ears.

"What is it?" They are on beds and Olivier can almost pretend they are back at base instead of a hospital because they were shot.

Mathieu looks up to the ceiling. He does not think it is the right time for confessions of any kind when Death had whispered in his ear and practically kissed Olivier's cheek with her touch.

He clears his throat.

"Tell me about Chambery. Does it rain a lot there?" Olivier closes his eyes and sets the scene.

"We are in a valley, but it is not like here. It is all green and pretty..."

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry. I don't know what I'm doing. It's been a weird day.


End file.
